October 15, Global Handwashing Day

Global Handwashing Day (GHD) is a campaign to motivate and mobilize people around the world to improve their handwashing habits by washing their hands with soap at critical moments throughout each day. It takes place on 15 October of each year. The campaign is dedicated to raisi
ng awareness of handwashing with soap as a key approach to disease prevention. 

Further Reading

This year’s theme for Global Handwashing Day is “Raise a hand for hygiene”!

This theme is action-oriented and can be used particularly well for advocacy purposes. For instance, the act of raising a hand is one of affiliation. You can and should identify yourself as a hygiene champion. This can help create a strong social norm of good hygiene in a school, community, or region. Likewise, when people raise a hand, they can also be counted. In terms of handwashing, this is a reminder that it is possible for governments to count how many people wash their hands and have access to hygiene facilities in homes, schools, and healthcare facilities. Governments must measure hygiene indicators to know where resources should be concentrated. Global Handwashing Day is a good opportunity to ask governments to fulfill this important role. We can also raise a hand to draw attention to the need for change, from parents’ associations raising a hand to ask for a better school hygiene policy to celebrities raising a hand to ask politicians to fund hygiene programs. 

We at Temitope Oke's Blog, we join the rest of the world to“Raise a hand for hygiene”! As we pick up books to read, kindly wash your hands afterward. It is a culture we want our reades to imbibe.  

Temitope Oke